


Fire and Egg

by burglebezzlement



Series: Wings over Purgatory [1]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Accidental Baby Animal Acquisition, Baby Dragon, Canon-Typical Violence, Earp Homestead, F/F, Fire Safety, Food, Found Family, Hiking, Psychic Animal Companion, Summer, dragon - Freeform, nicole backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-11 19:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7904410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/pseuds/burglebezzlement
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Waverly stumbles across a dragon egg. Fortunately, Nicole’s got family history with dragons.</p>
<p>Featuring a dragon, outdoors-y activities, fire safety, Nicole backstory, a surprising amount of Doc & Nicole interaction, general Homestead bonding, and of course WayHaught.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is set the spring and summer after Season One, and assumes that Dolls has returned and is once again in charge of Black Badge operations in Purgatory.

They stumble across the dragon’s egg on a warm summer day.

It’s a literal stumble. They’re out for a hike. Officially, Wynonna and Dolls have tasked the two junior members of Black Badge with checking out a rumor that the Revenants are hiding out in the hills, but Nicole knows that Wynonna wouldn’t have sent Waverly if she thought there was anything in it.

At least it’s a good day for a hike — the sun is up, the mosquitos are obeying the insect repellant, and it’s a lovely, warm day to be outdoors.

Only maybe just a bit too warm. Which is why Waverly wanders off the trail to go splash some water on her face from one of the many crisp mountain streams, and ends up tripping over a dragon egg instead. 

The sight of it catches Nicole’s breath in her throat — throws so many images, so many memories, up in her mind. It’s exactly as Oma described it. Nearly round, like a globe, about the size of a breadbasket, and flashing with hidden fire just like the black opal on Oma’s ring.

And it’s completely impossible.

Waverly bends down and the sight of her reaching out for the egg pulls Nicole out of her confusion. 

“Don’t touch it,” Nicole says. “We don’t know what it is.” (So she’s lying a little.)

“It has to be something,” Waverly says. She sets her pack down and crouches down in the grass to look at it.

It’s definitely something. Nicole knows what it is in her bones. 

But it’s _impossible_. 

Waverly insists on bringing the egg back with them, and Nicole doesn’t fight, because now that she’s seen the egg in person — seen one for herself — she could no more turn her back on it than she could choose not to fight the Revenants. They end up packing the egg into Nicole’s backpack with moss and spare t-shirts, to keep the heat of the thing from burning through on the hike back.

* * *

Nicole spent summers with her Oma and Opa as a child, in their tiny cabin on the shores of a lake Nicole can no longer remember the name of. She and her sisters slept up in the loft, with the fan trying and failing to move the swampy summer air. The days were spent with Oma and Opa.

Opa, who always had long stories to tell about the philosophy of the dragons, and Oma, who had heard from her mother’s mother about how to actually take care of them. 

“You’re one of them, child,” she’d say, brushing back Nicole’s hair from her eyes. “Hair the color of fire. Your sisters! Feh. Lovely children. But not the children of the dragon people.”

Nicole wanted to believe, the way most children want to believe. But she never actually did.

Until today.

* * *

Waverly brings the egg to the Homestead, which feels right to Nicole for reasons she can’t explain to herself.

Nicole gets the oven mitts and uses them to set the egg on the kitchen table, on a bed of the moss they used to carry it. 

“Should we call Dolls?” Waverly asks.

“He’s probably busy,” Nicole says. She’s worried about Black Badge. They don’t seem like they’d be down with dragons.

Then again. They’re down with the Earp Heir, who seems a little more off the leash than your average dragon, assuming the stories Nicole’s Oma told her were true. 

Waverly stares at the egg while Nicole puts together a salad, avocado and cold chicken and tomatoes over lettuce, and throws some cornbread alongside.

Wynonna gets back and doesn’t even look at the kitchen table, just heads to the bathroom to shower. 

Doc comes in at dinner time, mostly not drunk. He’s grabbed a beer from the fridge and a plate for the food before he notices the egg on the table.

“Now what in tarnation is that?” he asks, moving to a chair further from the egg than his usual spot. 

“We found it in the hills,” Waverly says. “I think it’s something magical.”

Doc makes that face Nicole sees him making at Waverly — the face that says he’s fond of her, but he thinks she’s naive sometimes. (He’s wrong. Waverly’s a realist. Nicole’s theory is that Doc thinks anyone who likes him or thinks he has good in him has to be naive.)

“So what are we hatching?” Doc asks, plunging his fork into a piece of avocado.

“No idea,” Waverly says. She hasn’t taken a plate of food yet. Instead, she’s leaning forward over the table, watching the egg.

* * *

The egg doesn’t do anything that night, or the next day, or the day after that.

It turns into background, the way clutter does. There’s the stack of bills that Wynonna’s putting off paying, and the gun that Doc stripped down and swears he’s going to fix, and the weird egg that Nicole and Waverly found up in the hills, sitting together on the table and mocking Waverly’s resolution to clean the Homestead more often.

Wynonna’s got more stakeouts. Dolls sends Nicole and Waverly off on a hike in the opposite direction. This time he gives them an official Black Badge aerial recon drone, which is fun to play with but fails to find any Revenants. Wherever they’re hiding out, it’s not showing on the tiny screen. 

Doc is doing — whatever it is that Doc does during the day. Maybe winning candy from children in crooked poker games. He’s been light on suckers to fleece since the Revenants all went underground. 

When something finally happens, it’s a rainy Tuesday night. Waverly’s dishing up chili.

Doc’s the one who notices it first. 

“You-all do realize that that there egg is about to hatch, right?”

Waverly gasps and almost drops the bowl of chili she’s holding to rush to the table and stare at the egg again.

It’s rocking — just barely. Nicole can feel the heat coming off of it from where she’s sitting.

“Maybe we should move it outside,” Nicole says. Oma never told her about this part. She’s not sure what to expect. 

“What’s it going to do?” Waverly asks. “Destroy the kitchen? Again?”

Nicole’s not convinced but she sits back to watch. When Wynonna comes in an hour later, they’re all still staring. The egg’s rocking more violently now.

Wynonna gets her current bottle from the top of the fridge and grabs a bag of chips. “Something’s finally happening with that thing?”

“It appears that something is trying to hatch,” Doc says. He’s sitting the furthest from them, and Nicole can tell that he’s got his hand near his gun. Just in case. 

Finally — finally — a crack appears in the top of the egg, and a tiny bit of the shell chips off. There’s a hiss and an escape of steam from the inside of the egg that makes even Waverly push back, a little.

“We never did figure out what this thing is,” Wynonna says through a mouthful of chips. “Should we call Dolls or something?”

“I’ve got a good feeling,” Waverly says, confidently.

Wynonna looks over at Nicole, because usually this is the point in Waverly’s schemes where Nicole gets worried along with Wynonna, but — not this time. Because Nicole knows exactly what’s going to hatch out of the steaming egg on the table.

While they watch, something starts chipping away at the hole in the egg, until it finally falls into two halves on the table.

And there it is, uncurling at last — the baby dragon. Four paws, a tail, and impossibly detailed wings.

Waverly draws her breath in when she sees it move. It’s got scales, tiny little scales that are a shade of opaque blue that Nicole suspects will darken as it dries off. 

Its head swings around the room, studying each of the humans in turn before looking at Nicole.

Nicole meets its gaze for a long moment, and then it goes back to looking around the table. 

Waverly’s crouched down to the level of the table, reaching her hand out carefully to stroke the dragon’s tiny paws. “Look, Nicole, it’s got little tiny claws!”

“It’s probably hungry,” Nicole says. There’s leftover steak in the fridge. She gets a plate and cuts some into tiny pieces — hopefully tiny enough that the dragon won’t choke. It’s probably not the right thing to feed the dragon, but hopefully it’s right enough for them to figure something out. 

The dragon makes its way to the plate, unsteadily, and starts gulping down the bits of steak. Waverly’s still got her hand over it, looking like she wants to pet it, when the dragon runs out of steak and lifts a tiny paw up to Waverly’s arm.

“Awwwwww,” Waverly says. And then “Ouch!”

She takes her hand back carefully and shows Nicole. There’s four little pinprick punctures.

“Probably hungry,” Nicole says. “You’re had enough for now, you.” She remembers what her grandmother said about overfeeding dragons. 

Waverly keeps her hands away, but pulls her cell phone out of her pocket and starts snapping pictures.

Nicole’s the one who notices that the tiny punctures on Waverly’s arm are swelling up. She hands Waverly the fireproof gloves from the wood stove before she heads to the bathroom to check the cabinet for Benadryl lotion. She’s been stocking the Earp medicine cabinet for a while now, because neither of the Earp sisters have a sense of self-preservation and she’s pretty sure Wynonna would cover a laceration with duct tape and a dirty paper towel if that was what she happened to have on hand. 

When she gets back to the kitchen, Waverly’s still hunched over, staring at the dragon. “I think its scales are getting darker,” she says.

Nicole hands her the Benadryl cream and it’s like that’s the first moment that Waverly notices the itchy splotches on her arm. “Thanks,” she says. 

“Any time.” Nicole sits down next to her.

“You think its claws are venomous?” Waverly asks. She’s still staring at it like it’s a teacup piglet or something else offensively adorable, but at least she’s wearing the fireplace gloves now.

“Maybe just something you’re allergic to,” Nicole says.

Waverly shakes her head. “I refuse to be allergic to our dragon.”

Wynonna raises an eyebrow. “Our dragon?”

“It’s a baby,” Waverly says. “We’re not putting it out in the cold, cruel world.”

“It’s going to put us out into the cold, cruel world if it burns the house down,” Wynonna says. But Nicole knows she’s just saying it. Waverly does, too.

“It needs a name,” Waverly says, bending closer to the dragon. “What about Inky?”

Doc clears his throat. “I had a horse once named Midnight. Fine steed he was, too.”

The dragon looks over to Nicole, and there’s another weird moment where things stretch out and Nicole feels like it’s trying to communicate. 

“I think she wants to choose her own name,” Nicole says, and she’s not even sure why.

Waverly turns to look at her. “She?”

“I —” Nicole shakes her head. “I just get that sense.”

And her grandmother always said all dragons were female. There’s that.

But Nicole’s still not quite sure how you tell your girlfriend that you come from a long line of dragon people.

* * *

When they get to Black Badge headquarters the next morning, Waverly spends ten minutes showing Doc every single picture she took of the dragon. Most of them are pretty similar.

“And there’s the dragon curling up for the night,” Waverly says, swiping through a dozen identical pictures of the dragon settling into the firewood bin, which Doc lined with some old bits of leather. “Isn’t she adorable?”

Wynonna looks up from the donut box. “Yeah, adorable, until she attacks you, baby girl.”

“She’s not going to attack me,” Waverly says, swiping through to show Dolls all the pictures of the dragon yawning in the morning sunlight. “What do you think she eats?”

“Is she going to attack?” Wynonna asks, looking at Dolls. “What do you know about dragons?”

Dolls doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he looks over at Nicole — meets her eyes. Nicole feels herself flushing. 

“I don’t know much about dragons,” Dolls says, not dropping eye contact. “But I think you’re in good hands.”

And then he goes back to looking at the photos while Waverly flips through them. Nicole’s heart is beating hard, like she’s going in after a suspect or serving a warrant. What does Dolls know? How far back did the Black Badge Division go, checking her background and her history?

Or maybe the Black Badge was behind her getting hired in Purgatory. Maybe this all goes a lot deeper than she thinks. 

It’s a few days later, and Nicole’s sitting in the patrol car, watching for speeders out on Old County Road, when it occurs to her that if Dolls does know about her family’s — background — he’s not saying anything. Not even to Wynonna.

Nicole clocks someone going seven over the limit and decides to let them go. For today.

Maybe Dolls understands. Or maybe it’s not just her who has something to hide.

* * *

Normally Waverly would spend her time looking up the dragon in the books, because that’s what she does. She researches. She provides actionable information to the Black Badge Division. She is a member of the team and research is her primary team contribution.

This, though. The dragon.

It’s not that the dragon isn’t in the books. It’s that all the dragons are in all the books, and there’s no way to know which dragons are real, and even if you knew that — which of the dragons do they have here? Nicole watches while Waverly sweats over the books, trying to figure out what the dragon eats and where she came from.

Nicole’s the one with the advantage. She doesn’t remember everything her grandmother told her, but she remembers enough. 

The stories about feeding the baby dragons only on finest wild boar’s liver and cognac are clearly bullshit, if only because Nicole’s pretty sure the original dragon people lived in the forest and hadn’t figured out how to distill brandy.

But liver makes sense. Nicole researches diet for animals like cats and figures the dragon’s probably got similar dietary requirements. It’s an obligate carnivore — its teeth and her Oma’s stories make that clear. 

So muscle tissue, things like steaks and porkchops, won’t be enough to give the dragon the vitamins and minerals it needs. Nicole buys a pack of chicken livers and the dragon snaps them up, wriggling her tail in the way that says she wants more.

* * *

They’re still figuring out everything that the dragon can do. Her scales are deep blue now, almost black, with an iridescent sheen, and Waverly’s enthusiasm for taking photos isn’t waning. Quite the opposite. Dolls has given Waverly a five-photo-a-day limit down at Black Badge.

One night Nicole gets back from a shift to find Waverly playing with the dragon on the floor. She’s leaning forward and teasing the dragon with the end of her braid, like she does Nicole’s cat, Calamity Jane, when she stays over.

“Look,” she says, turning to Nicole. “She’s —”

And then there’s a puff of smoke from the dragon’s mouth, a puff of smoke and then there’s a flame — and Waverly’s hair is on fire and shit, this is just what Nicole was afraid of. 

She grabs a glass of water from the kitchen and throws it on Waverly’s hair.

“I had no idea she could do that!” Waverly says, looking towards the dragon with delight. “That’s amazing!”

“Are you okay?” Nicole asks. 

Waverly shrugs off the question and leans down towards the dragon and runs a careful finger along the scales on her back. “I shouldn’t have been teasing you, huh.”

Nicole shakes her head and goes to get the dragon’s evening dinner. The dragon is getting bigger — when she hatched, she was roughly cat-sized, and a pack of chicken livers was a generous meal, but now they’re buying pork liver and beef kidneys and basically every type of offal that the butcher down at the Super-Value is able to get his hands on. 

The next day, Nicole drives into the outskirts of the city before her shift and hits a home improvement store. The smoke detectors come two to a pack, so Nicole buys four, and then she buys a fire extinguisher for every room. Doc helps her install them, that evening.

* * *

After the Solstice, Nicole went through a few weeks where she had trouble reconciling the weirdo who lived in her girlfriend’s barn with Doc Holliday (yes, _that_ Doc Holliday).

Fortunately, Doc’s the sort of guy who punctuates his own legends. Nicole got a little more comfortable around him after the first time she went out to the barn to get him for dinner (Waverly insists on cooking for everyone) and found him crying into his whiskey bottle about Wyatt Earp, his beloved friend who was torn from him by the Stone Witch. Usually these drinking binges end with Wynonna offering to drive him out to the salt flats, so he can kick salt in the Stone Witch’s face, and Doc drunkenly declining and stumbling out to the barn to sleep it off.

It makes it easy to ignore the _that_ -Doc-Holliday of it all and just go back to the weirdo living in the barn, who also happens to be a really good shot. 

Nicole’s not convinced by Doc’s stories about Wyatt. He’s too saintly. Nicole’s known a couple Earps by now, and while they’re self-sacrificing, they’re not saints. 

_Definitely not saints,_ Nicole thinks one night, listening to Waverly and Wynonna swap stories about growing up at the Homestead. Wynonna’s got the fire pit lit and they’re sitting around, watching the flames.

Doc’s probably out gambling. The dragon’s sitting at Waverly’s feet, curled up and staring up at the sparks as they fly up from the crackling fire.

“Remember the Christmas where Daddy said he had to work?” Waverly says, now. She’s got her hand on the dragon’s head, scritching under the dragon’s chin. 

“Right!” Wynonna holds up her whiskey bottle. “I forgot that! And he left us out here and then you snuck down to call Gus and Curtis and ask them if Santa Claus was coming, but Willa caught you and made us hide in the barn when they came because she didn’t want them to be mad at Daddy.” She starts laughing. 

“And then they called the police,” Waverly says, and she’s laughing about this, which always surprises Nicole, the way Waverly can find humor in her family stories. “And then they sent Daddy out to search the Homestead, and Willa told on us and got all the presents.”

“That’s not how I remember it,” Wynonna says. “Wait, is that the year Daddy got drunk and tried to burn the presents?”

“That was before Momma left,” Waverly says. 

They both go silent, staring into the fire. Nicole’s gotten used to this, to the way they both fall quiet whenever their mother comes up.

Nicole knows that Waverly’s always felt like Ward Earp ignored her. Like she wasn’t part of Willa and Wynonna’s little two-sister group. But listening to Wynonna talk about how Ward treated them — Nicole’s not sure that Waverly didn’t get the better end of the deal, being neglected by Ward Earp. 

Waverly looks back down at the dragon. “She still needs a name,” she says, looking over at Nicole.

“Miss Pricey Eat Us Out Of House and Home,” Wynonna says, looking over.

“She’s a baby,” Waverly says. “She’s growing!”

“Which is it?” Wynonna scritches the dragon under the chin, carefully. “Is she a baby, or is she growing?”

“Both,” Waverly says. 

Waverly looks over at Nicole. “So names?”

Nicole smiles at Waverly. “I still think she’s going to choose her own,” she says.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who commented/kudosed the first chapter! It's awesome to see this dragon story getting readers. ♥

It’s a few more weeks before Nicole gives in and moves Calamity Jane, her cat, out to the Homestead. 

It’s not permanent, necessarily, but the dragon’s getting bigger and Waverly needs Nicole there to help with her. And anyway, Wynonna’s been spending more nights on stakeouts with Dolls, and Doc isn’t always there…. Wynonna grins when Nicole explains her reasons.

Calamity’s always been an indoor cat, and it’s an adjustment for the others to keep her inside the house. Doc, especially, doesn’t try to stop her when she rushes his legs when he goes in and out the door. (Technically he still lives in the barn, but he’s always in and out of the house for showers and cold beer.) He keeps letting Calamity out, right up until the morning when he wakes up with the dragon sitting on his feet, and Calamity curled up at his neck, purring loudly with one claw held to his jugular.

“Your cat tried to scalp me,” he informs Nicole, after bringing Calamity back into the house. 

Nicole doesn’t believe that, but Doc does have angry red scratches up and down his arms.

“Maybe you shouldn’t let her out,” Wynonna says, like she’s not the second-biggest offender in the cat- and dragon-freeing business. 

Nicole sighs, and goes to get the Benadryl cream for Doc’s scratches.

Apart from the occasional skirmish with Doc, Calamity settles in well at the Homestead. The dragon takes to following the cat around, like she’s a second dragon, and they take naps together. The dragon’s apparently warm enough to make a really nice heating pad for a cranky cat.

* * *

There’s a heat wave when the dragon’s about the size of a Laborador retriever.

It’s not just hot — it’s sweaty and humid. Nicole’s felt this kind of heat before, but Waverly and Wynonna grew up in the Ghost River Triangle and they’re not adapted. Waverly sets up like eight fans in their bedroom and she and Nicole lie on top of the covers, sweating into the sheets all night.

Doc gets increasingly grumpy and starts snapping at Wynonna for letting the coffee water boil over. Then he comes back with a crappy window air conditioner unit one night. It’s got initials carved into the metal heat exchanger on the back but he’s beaming with pride when he installs it in the living room window. 

Doc says that it’s because he wanted the damn kitchen to stay slightly less than hellfire-hot, and the windows in the kitchen are too small for the unit, but everyone but Wynonna knows that Doc got the air conditioner for her, because this effectively means that Wynonna now has an air-conditioned bedroom, since she’s still sleeping on the couch at night. 

The dragon does fine, of course. Nicole comes home after a night shift to find the dragon asleep on the front porch, curled up in the sunshine.

* * *

Oma and Opa died a few years ago, but in her dream, Nicole’s watching them from the loft of their camp. They’re sitting at the table talking in low tones, and then Oma looks up.

“Come down, schatze,” Oma says, and then she’s stretching impossibly long arms out and lifting Nicole from the loft. Setting her down beside them at the table.

“How is your dragon?” Opa asks, leaning forward across the table.

“It’s our dragon,” Nicole says, inanely.

“Our dragon?” Opa looks judgmental. “Who among the normal volk is worthy to share in your dragon, child?”

“My girlfriend,” Nicole says, and then she wonders if it was the right thing to say. _Am I really coming out to my dead grandparents in a dream?_

“She must be very special,” Oma says. And then things are sliding sideways, the world around the camp’s kitchen table whirling around them. Opa goes off with a goat wearing a minstrel costume and then Oma and Nicole fetch up on a mountain top, looking out over Purgatory.

It’s a view Nicole’s seen before, when she and Waverly climbed the mountain a few weeks ago. But this isn’t the same. The view in the real world is distant — remote — and Purgatory looked like a tiny spot on the horizon.

From the dream vantage point, the town is impossibly close to the mountaintop. If Nicole stares, she can see the details on the buildings, the faces of the people. Can read the new sign outside Shorty’s. 

Oma picks up Nicole’s hand in her two wrinkled hands. “This is the town you have been chosen to protect, schatze. You and your girlfriend.” She smiles. “I’m sure she’s a very nice girl.”

“I do protect it, Oma,” Nicole says. “I’m a police officer.”

“Pah!” Oma shakes her head. “Police. No. The police can only assign you to protect. This, this you have been chosen for.” 

She lets go of Nicole’s hand and Nicole feels a strange loss, and then she’s being tucked into bed on a cold winter’s night and Oma is kissing her forehead.

“We will be watching you, schatze,” she says, and then Nicole slides away into another place.

* * *

She wakes up shivering, in spite of the oppressive heat in their bedroom.

“Nic?” Waverly turns over next to her. She’s got her hair loose and it’s tumbled over the tank top she wears because Wynonna makes fun of them if they don’t wear anything to bed.

“It’s okay,” Nicole says. Her heart rate is slow but it still feels like her heart is pounding, pumping an impossible amount of blood with each beat.

“You’re shivering,” Waverly says, and she wriggles around until she can pull up part of the covers to tuck over Nicole.

“Just a weird dream,” Nicole says. “I’m okay.”

Waverly’s face is sweaty when she puts her head on Nicole’s shoulder. “Sure?”

“Sure,” Nicole says. She takes a couple deep breaths and lets herself float.

The shivers stop and Nicole pulls off the covers again. Even in a tank top and underwear, it’s too hot. “I need to buy you an air conditioner,” she says, into Waverly’s hair. 

“Waste of money,” Waverly says.

“Why not?” Nicole asks. “Doc got to buy one for Wynonnna.”

“I’m not entirely sure Doc actually bought that,” Waverly says, giggling for a moment.

“So I’ll steal you one. If you want what Doc got for Wynonna.”

“I am shocked to hear you say that, Officer Haught,” Waverly says. “I think he won it in a poker game, though.”

Probably. Doc’s got a small pool of remaining suckers but he’s fleecing them for all he’s worth. Nicole’s been called down to the new Shorty’s twice on complaints from Earp fanatic tourists who assumed Doc and his poker game were just a quaint tourist attraction right up until the minute when he walked off with all their spending money. 

“I’ll get the air conditioner tomorrow,” Nicole says.

“Ugh.” Waverly runs a hand through her hair. “It’s a waste of money. It’ll cool down soon enough. And anyway, the wiring won’t handle it.”

“It’s fine with Wynonna’s.”

“So how do we know it’ll do two?” Waverly asks.

Nicole has no answer other than _maybe we should try_. The Homestead is kind of a fire trap. She keeps meaning to have an electrician come out to take a look. 

“I’ll get the smallest one they have,” Nicole says.

Waverly rolls away and stares up at the ceiling. “You don’t have to.”

“I know that,” Nicole says. “You guys don’t charge me rent. You don’t have to do that, either.”

“I do not need an air conditioner,” Waverly says.

“And I don’t need free rent.”

Waverly shakes her head. “Nicole….”

“Seriously, why not?” Nicole asks. 

She’s been tempted to make changes to the Homestead for a while now, but beyond stuff like smoke detectors — it’s touchy. Maybe Waverly’s worried that the air conditioner is the first step to Nicole filling their house with garbage disposals and dish washers and decent wifi. 

(Although Nicole would love it if they had a washer and dryer. If only because Wynonna’s figured that Nicole usually has clean clothes, and Wynonna _hates_ going into Purgatory to do laundry. Nicole’s closer in height than Waverly and doesn’t wear pastels, so her dresser is Wynonna’s first hunting ground when she runs out of clean clothing.)

Waverly runs a hand over her side. Over the scar. “It’s just going to get shot up again,” she says. “The last nice thing I bought for the Homestead….”

Nicole brushes her hand over Waverly’s forehead. They haven’t been attacked at the Homestead since Pete came after Wynonna on the Solstice, but… “I know,” Nicole says. She kisses Waverly’s shoulder and curls into her. “But we’re protecting it now, sweetheart.”

Waverly smiles. “You and our dragon.”

“Exactly.”

* * *

Nicole buys the air conditioner the next day, and then the weather breaks. The air conditioner works, though — and the electrical in the house holds up to both Wynonna’s AC and Waverly’s AC running at the same time.

Nicole still makes a mental note to ask Waverly about an electrician.

The dragon’s growing. She’s still an inky black, but there are lighter scales on her underbelly now. She’s eating enough to make Wynonna grumble, even though Nicole and Waverly are the ones buying most of the food.

Nicole doesn’t get to see the dragon’s first attempts at flight. 

She comes home after a long shift — a fight at a roadhouse outside of town that Nedley and Dolls thought might have involved a Revenant. It didn’t, but Nicole still got tagged with checking things out, figuring out why anyone who _wasn’t_ a Revenant would have started a bar fight at one in the afternoon, and processing the paperwork. A long day.

Waverly rushes up to her as she walks over the cattle gate across the entrance to the Homestead. “Nicole, look!”

She’s got her phone held up in front of her, but it’s moving too fast for Nicole to see.

“At what?” Nicole asks. 

“Right,” Waverly says. She cues up a video and hands the phone over to Nicole. “The dragon’s learning to fly!”

Nicole watches the video three times. The dragon is — sort of learning to fly; it’s more of a power-assisted run as she tears around her field. (Her field because Doc dug out a firebreak around it, just in case. The dragon has been very disciplined with her fire, but.)

There’s a bit at the end where the dragon lifts further off the ground, though, and Nicole can see that it’s not going to be long before she gets the hang of it. 

Waverly sees Nicole’s face. “Hey — should I have called you?” She shakes her head. “I knew I should have called you.”

“It’s fine,” Nicole says. “I was out at the Roadhouse questioning suspects anyway. I couldn’t have come.”

Waverly puts her arm around Nicole’s waist and hugs her. “I don’t want you to miss anything about our dragon.”

Later, while Nicole’s helping Wynonna demolish a pan of nachos with Waverly’s special cheese sauce and listening to Doc tell tall tales about the old West, she realizes what she’s worried about.

If the dragon is flying, it might not be long before the dragon decides to go.

That happens sometimes — Nicole’s grandmother told her so, anyway: a dragon would end up with one of the dragon people who wasn’t qualified or special enough or right, somehow, and decide to head off for another home. Find another place.

And — would the dragon even be safe doing that? Nicole thinks about the reactions of the ranchers to the reintroduction of wolves and shivers. The dragon’s a lot larger than a wolf. A lot hungrier.

Nicole promises herself that she’s going to spend more time with the dragon from now on.

* * *

The more time Nicole spends around the dragon, the more she starts getting — glimpses. Moments when it feels like she’s split between two places, looking up at the dragon and looking down on the tiny earth-bound human on the ground. Split between two sets of eyes.

It’s disorienting but it also feels right, in a way Nicole’s not quite sure how to explain to herself. A way she definitely can’t explain to Waverly.

The dragon’s really flying now, much to Waverly’s delight. She’s also trying to hunt.

One day Nicole comes home from an early shift, and she sees the dragon (who is now the size of a small pony) and Calamity Jane out in the field. Probably Wynonna’s fault that Calamity Jane’s outside; Doc’s been pretty careful about letting Calamity Jane out since the neck incident.

As Nicole watches, the dragon wriggles its hindquarters and pounces on something Nicole can’t see. Calamity Jane watches calmly from the sidelines.

_She’s teaching her to hunt like a cat,_ Nicole realizes, with a wave of amusement.

Although. If they could teach the dragon to hunt… it’d certainly cut down on the liver bill Wynonna’s been complaining about.

After another pounce, the dragon notices she’s there and half-flies, half-walks over to Nicole.

“You’re doing very well,” Nicole tells her, scratching under her chin. The dragon’s head is growing faster than her body right now, and she looks out of proportion (although Waverly, as always, says their dragon is beautiful and won’t hear another word about it). 

Nicole meets the dragon’s eyes. She feels silly, but she tries to project — just a simple image, herself and Waverly down in a field and the dragon swooping down on small game in the forest.

The dragon’s surprise comes through to Nicole — a burst of excitement like it’s come from her own brain. And then a longing for raw liver, which Nicole can tell comes from the dragon because there’s no way Nicole would be thinking of raw liver as delicious. 

“All right,” Nicole says, “it’s time for dinner.” 

Calamity Jane follows her inside.

* * *

Waverly and Nicole start taking more hikes, and bringing the dragon along with them.

At first they’re trying to get the dragon into the back seat of the Jeep, which is an increasingly tight squeeze, but the dragon’s only getting better at flying and eventually they give up on driving her and just let her fly over them, following the Jeep to their destination. 

Waverly worries that someone in town is going to report a giant flying monster, but Nicole gives her the details on a few of the other things the town’s been able to ignore over the years, starting with the weathervane and ending with the way the entire town has collectively decided not to talk about the Solstice poisoning. It’s a long list, and every week she and Nedley come across something that makes it longer. 

They’re halfway up a mountain overlooking the big city when the dragon gets her first kill — a small rabbit. Nicole’s sorry for the rabbit but the dragon’s just so happy. 

Nicole’s starting to feel more of the dragon’s emotions, seeping in around the edges of her mind. It’s strange. Not like anything her Opa told her to expect. His tales about the dragon people were about bravery, and sacrifice. Fairy tales for people who will grow up to work with dragons. 

Her Oma told her different stories, but her stories were practical — the daily life of maintaining a dragon. It’s because of Oma that Nicole knows knows that the dragon needs gravel for her digestion and oil for her scales. 

But daily life, feeling a dragon’s emotions seeping in around the edges — it’s a strange thing. It’s not something Nicole was prepared for.

If Waverly weren’t so overwhelmingly empathetic herself, with everyone and everything around her, it might be a harder thing for Nicole to hide.

* * *

Dolls is still sending them out to look for possible Revenant hiding spots, although Nicole has stopped using the Black Badge drone. It didn’t work well anyway. Instead, Nicole’s started asking the dragon to fly out to areas they can’t cover. A trip now might involve Nicole and Waverly making a straight line while the dragon sweeps diagonally, throwing up images to Nicole’s mind whenever she sees something that could be something.

They’re still not finding anything. Wherever the Revenants have holed up — whatever they’re hiding — it’s not out in Purgatory’s mountains, or the bad lands, or the Swan River Reservoir, where Waverly takes Nicole one morning. The dragon flies a slow sweep around the treehouse while Waverly tells Nicole about Willa’s captivity and Nicole shivers in the sunlight.

* * *

They’re coming back from a hike when the dragon decides on her name.

Doc and Wynonna have given up on name suggestions for the dragon. Waverly hasn’t, and her name suggestions are getting increasingly unlikely. Inky. Fiyah. Ms. Dragon McFearsomepants. Nicole’s pretty sure Waverly’s doing it to get a rise out of her. Or maybe to get a rise out of the dragon, because every time Waverly comes up with a worse name the dragon looks over at Nicole with an expression that says _she’s one of ours but that is unacceptable behavior_. You don’t have to be one of the dragon people to read it, either.

This time around, Dolls sent them out to check the foothills of the mountains on the western edge of the Ghost River Triangle.

It’s cooler outside Purgatory. On the walk back, their trail takes them beside one of the rivers, running freely over rocks and pooling in the slow parts. Waverly stops to wade and Nicole lies back on the bank, listening to the burble of the water and watching Waverly from the dragon’s perspective overhead. 

It’s getting easier, slipping into the dragon’s point of view. Feeling bits of the dragon’s emotions. Nicole’s been learning to filter, too — let the awareness of the dragon fade back into a mostly-unnoticed part of her mind while she’s at work.

It’s on the hike back that Nicole realizes that the dragon’s trying to tell her something.

The dragon doesn’t understand human speech. She’s pretty good at figuring out what Nicole’s saying, but that’s partly because of her bond with Nicole and partly because Nicole has started projecting her thoughts in images when she needs the dragon to understand something.

The dragon’s projecting something at Nicole. It’s an image of the river, seen from overhead, but there’s also a feeling of something running, something wearing down the mountains. Something constant and certain and always, always working. 

And then there’s another overlay. The dragon’s thinking about the river and the dragon’s thinking about herself. 

Nicole keeps sending curious thoughts at the dragon, inquisitive feelings, because she knows whatever this is isn’t urgent but she also can feel that it’s important to the dragon. Why?

They’re already back at the Homestead when the dragon sends a strong image of herself and then an image of the river, and Nicole finally understands.

“You want your name,” Nicole says, dropping down beside the dragon and looking in her eyes. “Is that it?”

Feelings of relief and acceptance and — yeah, Nicole’s pretty sure that’s it.

She hugs the dragon’s neck, feeling the texture of the dragon’s scales against her arm, smooth contrasting with the rough edges, and heated by the dragon’s fire underneath. 

Dinner that night is Waverly’s attempt at gazpacho, which isn’t bad even though Wynonna refuses to try it. 

“The dragon has a name,” Nicole says. 

Doc looks up from his bowl. “Midnight?”

“It’s River,” Nicole says. “She wants to be known as River.”

Waverly gives Nicole the look she’s been giving her since Nicole said that the dragon wanted to name herself. “How do you know that?”

“I just do,” Nicole says, curling back into her seat. It’s dinner and she’s still not sure how to tell Waverly and she _really_ doesn’t want to do it in front of Wynonna and Doc.

“River,” Waverly says, like she’s tasting the name. “River? River the Dragon?”

“Weird name for a dragon,” Wynonna says, pulling down the corn chips from the top of the fridge and sitting down at the table with the bag. 

Waverly smiles. “If Nicole says she wants to be River, then that’s her name.”


	3. Chapter 3

Nicole notices Waverly hitting the books more often over the next couple days. She’s started asking questions, too. Nothing that says she’s on to what Nicole hasn’t told her, but she might be on the right track. 

Nicole’s going to have to tell her. The thought makes her stomach churn. 

They’re alone at the Homestead with the dragon, a few evenings after River chose her name. Usually they’ve got either Wynonna or Doc or both joining them for dinner, but tonight Wynonna’s out with Dolls, staking out a building on the outskirts of Purgatory where a tipster told them they might find a few of the missing Revenants hanging out. Doc’s out because he's heard about a high-stakes poker game. He hasn’t been invited, but he’s Doc Holliday and he’s figuring he can get in. 

So it’s just Nicole and Waverly for dinner. It’s a nice night, clear and cool. The sun’s still up because it’s Purgatory in summer and the daylight seems to go on forever. 

Waverly grills them steak and new corn on the grill that Doc won in another one of his poker games, and Nicole pulls out a potato salad she bought at the store, and they eat in chairs by the fire pit. River gets raw cow’s liver, because it’s still her favorite. 

They do the dishes together while the first stars are just coming out, and then Waverly checks things around the Homestead while Nicole scrapes down the grill. (It’s a piece of shit, but it’s their piece of shit. And River likes watching the flames when Doc gets frustrated and tries to start the coals with a crap-ton of lighter fluid.)

Nicole’s got an early shift the next morning, so they’re in bed early. Just another night at the Earp homestead, Nicole thinks, brushing her lips over Waverly’s hair while Waverly sleeps beside her.

* * *

Nicole is awakened by a strong feeling of fear.

Not her own fear. She wasn’t dreaming, that she can remember, but she’s drawn out of sleep by a feeling of fear and an image of — something.

She opens the bedside table and gets her gun before she tries to wake Waverly.

“Waves,” she whispers. “Someone’s coming.”

She doesn’t know how she knows until she suddenly does. River’s sending an image, of men hiking in, silent in heavy boots on the scrubland. 

Waverly’s still for a moment, and then she sits up and grabs her shotgun from beside the bed. “Who? How do you know?”

“They’re coming up to the fence,” Nicole says. The image River sends is more vivid to her than the dark bedroom around them.

“If it’s Revenants, they can’t get in,” Waverly says.

Nicole gets up, carefully, quietly, and pulls on pants. “It wasn’t Revenants last time.”

Waverly swallows, and then brushes her hand over Nicole’s cheek before picking up her cell phone. “I’m calling Wynonna.”

It’s tense, in the gloom of the dark house. Trying to find shoes and trying to find Nicole’s bullet-proof vest (and she’s going to get Waverly a vest as soon as this is over, Nicole thinks, she is going to _make_ Black Badge buy them all a vest, and maybe a proximity sensor or ten wouldn’t hurt either). 

“Wynonna’s going to be a while,” Waverly says grimly as she locks her phone. “They’re coming now, but they’re pretty far away. She and Dolls think the tip was a decoy.”

Probably the poker game too, Nicole thinks. There’s more ammunition in the closet out in the main room, and she throws Waverly a box of shotgun shells. 

“Don’t get shot,” Waverly says, low.

Nicole looks at her, in the near-darkness, and then they’re together and kissing and it’s not enough, not nearly enough, even though Nicole’s got her arms around Waverly and —

There’s a noise from outside, just at the edge of Nicole’s hearing, and then River sends Nicole a wave of concern and worry and an image of the attackers going past the cattle gate that marks the boundary of the Earp land.

“Don’t you get shot either,” Nicole says. “Stay down. Don’t flip the lights on until we have to.”

Nicole slips out the back door, leaving it open behind her so the sound of the door closing won’t alert the attackers. Whoever they are.

As Nicole creeps quietly around the edge of the Homestead, River sends her more images. Five attackers. Nicole’s human eyes can barely keep her moving in the darkness, but dragon eyes are more sensitive. 

Nicole tracks them, through River’s eyes, until they’re in range. She uses River’s sight to shoot the nearest Revenant — gets him through the shoulder. In River’s eyes, he jerks and falls. Stays down. 

Not precision shooting. Doc would be embarrassed. But. One down. 

The sound of the shot turns the others towards her position. Two of them open fire on the Homestead and Nicole can only hope that Waverly listened to her. Stayed low. Stayed in cover.

Nicole’s dropping and running, using River’s eyes more than her own as she runs to the shelter of the barn, away from the other two Revenants, the ones who are trying to track her. She shoots again, from the barn’s cover, and hits one of the two in the face.

“Waverly!” Nicole yells. “Lights, now!”

She’s just given away her position, and — there, she feels the concussion of the shots hitting the side of the barn. Only barn in town to need ballistic protection, Nicole thinks, as she runs to the other side. 

It’s a long and heart-stopping moment before the house’s lights flash on, blinding Nicole and (she hopes) everyone else.

Everyone but River. Her eyes adapt, and Nicole’s got dragon-vision.

Working together feels like coming home, Nicole’s vision a palimpsest of blinded human vision and clear dragon vision and human fear and dragon anger. River wants to set the attackers on fire, and Nicole’s holding her back because she doesn’t want the dragon to be hurt. Because the dragon’s never fought a human or a Revenant before.

The hills are dry, and Nicole’s afraid of the fire.

There are two Revenants left when the bullet finds Nicole. It hits her in the chest. Knocks her down.

She’s been here before, with her bulletproof vest. She holds herself still, her heart beating unevenly in her chest, while the attacker comes to stand over her. Leans over.

She shoots him in the face. He drops, away from her, and Nicole can feel River’s anger burning across the bond between them.

She sends a feeling to River, strong — _go ahead, burn the last attacker_ — and then the dragon’s racing after the last of them as he runs, unsteady on his across the cattle gate. She sees the flare of dragon fire out of the corner of her human eyes. Through River’s eyes, she sees talons rend the Revenant, who screams unevenly.

_Waverly_. Nicole tries to get up, but she’s still having trouble moving. Trouble standing.

She tries to send an image of Waverly to River, ask her to find Waverly instead of chasing down the attacker, but the dragon’s too focused on her target.

There’s another shot from the far side of the barn — a shotgun blast, this time. Waverly’s shotgun. Nicole _hopes_. 

And then Waverly’s standing over her and bending down, running her hands over Nicole and opening up the vest. “Nicole! Nicole, don’t you dare be shot. Not again.”

“We have to stop meeting like this,” Nicole says, and laughs, but laughing hurts. She remembers how this felt at the Solstice. The elephant standing on her chest.

It’s so good to be alive. It’s so good to be alive with Waverly.

Waverly puts her head down on Nicole’s chest, gently, and then just holds her. “You have to stop doing that to me,” she says, her voice rough.

“The shotgun?” Nicole asks, and then coughs and damn that hurts right now.

“One of the ones you hit was trying to move,” Waverly says.

“So they are —” Nicole coughs again, wrapping her arms around her chest to try to reduce the pain. “They are Revenants. How?”

“We’re going to find out,” Waverly says, her voice grim.

* * *

Doc shows up first. He’s riding a horse Nicole’s never seen before.

“What in tarnation —” He jumps off the horse and wraps the reins around the post at the gate. “What happened here?”

“We got attacked,” Waverly says. She’s still at Nicole’s side, but she’s got her shotgun ready in case any of the Revenants try to make a run for it.

“I can see that,” Doc says, looking around the clearing and taking in the Revenants. “Does Wynonna know?”

“We figured we’d let it be a surprise,” Nicole says, and starts laughing. There’s a sharp spasm of pain from her ribs.

“Wynonna knows,” Waverly says, looking down at Nicole with concern. “She and Dolls are on their way.”

“Where did you get the horse?” Nicole asks, from the ground. She can see it through River’s eyes.

“I, ah, liberated her,” Doc says.

“Doc Holliday!” Nicole gasps, dramatically, and then catches her breath when she starts wheezing. “Did you steal a horse for us?”

“I had some inkling that there might be something going awry,” Doc says. He’s glaring over at the road, and then down at Nicole. “She’s not the first horse Wyatt or I might have had to liberate for a greater purpose.”

River’s on her way back, and then she’s next to Nicole, on the other side from Waverly. She smells like burning and her eyes are glowing. There’s a wash of emotion, pouring over Nicole — gratefulness and fondness and love. Like she’s being hit in the face with a firehose of affection. 

“I’m okay,” Nicole says, rubbing her hand over the dragon’s head and under her chin. “I’m okay, you silly sausage.” She feels tears coming and doesn’t even try to stop them, just keeps rubbing the dragon’s head while they pour down her face. 

“I’m okay,” she says to the dragon, leaning closer and trying to project back her own love and affection. “I love you too.”

* * *

Wynonna and Dolls come screaming up in Dolls’ SUV and race over. Wynonna checks that Nicole’s okay before pulling Waverly up and into a hug. “You’ve got to stop doing this, baby girl,” she says into Waverly’s hair.

“I’m fine,” Waverly says, but she’s not letting go of Wynonna, either.

Once she’s sure everyone is alright, Wynonna draws Peacemaker, and dispatches the remains of the Revenants back to Hell. River’s interested in the process. She leaves Nicole’s side to watch the sparks coming up from the ground, and then looks over at Nicole once all the Revenants are gone. 

“How did they get on the land?” Waverly asks. She’s still shivering and Nicole rubs her hand up and down her arm. 

“Looks like we’ve got another witch,” Wynonna says, picking up a fetish charm from the ground. She turns it over in her hand, studying the bone and feather and wrapped wire. “Ew.”

“Or someone in Black Badge betrayed us,” Dolls says, grimly. 

“I thought that wasn’t supposed to work unless it was buried,” Waverly says, from next to Nicole. 

“We figure this out later,” Wynonna says. “For now, we need to get Nicole checked out.”

“I’m fine,” Nicole says. She is. She’s fine. She’s here and she’s with her family and she’s got a dragon and she’s _fine_. 

“Can you look her over?” Waverly says, to Dolls. “I think she might be in shock.”

Dolls checks her out, pronounces her good to stand, and then he and Waverly lift her up, carefully, while River snuffles at her side, worried and not reassured by the soothing thoughts Nicole’s trying to send through the pain in her chest. 

She’s going to have so many bruises tomorrow. 

But the Homestead is safe.

* * *

It’s the evening after the attack on the Homestead. The most recent attack on the Homestead, Nicole thinks, looking around them. Once your home has been shot up two or three times, you start losing track.

Her chest still hurts. Dolls thinks she’s got a cracked rib, maybe two, but it’s not like they’d be able to do anything for her at the hospital, so instead she’s spent most of the day clutching a pillow to her chest and coughing, carefully, like Dolls says to. Like they told her to last time around, to avoid pneumonia. 

They’re sitting outside, watching the last of the sunlight disappear behind the mountains to the west of the Homestead. The smell of smoke from distant fires lingers in the air.

River’s curled up in front of them, right in front of the fire pit. She’s going to be covered in soot when she wakes up, but right now, Nicole’s so grateful to her that she could track soot all over the Homestead and the station and Calamity Jane and Nicole wouldn’t care. (And Calamity Jane getting covered in soot really would be a calamity, because Nicole’s cat hates baths almost as much as she hates men.)

“So how did you know?” Waverly asks. 

“How did I know what?” Nicole asks.

“You knew someone was attacking us way before you possibly could have,” Waverly says. She looks down at River, who’s got a few sparks blowing out of her nose as she snores. She’s not normally that careless with her flame, but Waverly’s been feeding her all the liver she can eat since the attack and River’s apparently sleeping it off. 

Nicole keeps staring at River, trying to come up with the words. “It’s weird,” she says.

Waverly laughs and then takes Nicole’s hand. “You’re living with your girlfriend and your girlfriend’s sister, the curse-heir, and her great-great-granddad’s best friend who should be dead. Don’t talk to me about weird, Haught.”

“It’s still weird,” Nicole insists. Because it is.

Waverly squeezes her hand. “Try me.”

Nicole takes a deep breath and looks up at the stars. They’re just coming out, shining clear in the deep blue sky.

“My grandparents used to tell us stories,” she says.

She’s not sure how she’s going to explain this until she’s in it, so she just tells Waverly everything. Going to the camp with her grandmother and grandfather and her sisters and all the stories they used to tell. About the forests, so deep and dark you could find anything there. Maybe a wild boar or maybe a princess in a castle or maybe a wolf.

“Or dragons,” Nicole says. She looks down at River, who’s sleeping more deeply. “And people who worked with dragons.”

Waverly’s quivering with excitement next to her. “The drachenvolk? Nicole, please tell me you’re talking about the drachenvolk.”

“Yeah,” Nicole says. “I mean. I think so?”

Waverly drops Nicole’s hand and shoots up and runs inside the Homestead without saying anything. 

“I think I weirded her out,” Nicole says, to River, who snorts in her sleep and lets a couple more sparks fly out onto the iron of the firepit.

In between the rest of the past day — in between trying to help Dolls search the Revenants’ effects for clues, and trying to help Waverly clean up the Homestead, and asking (and asking, and then ordering) Doc to take his borrowed mount back to wherever the hell he found her — Nicole’s been trying to figure out why she feels so weird about telling Waverly about this.

“Found it,” Waverly says, from the doorway. She lets the front door to the Homestead slam behind her and comes over to drop an enormous leather-bound book in Nicole’s lap.

“There,” Waverly says, triumphantly. “That’s the type of dragon River is, isn’t she? And you knew that the Revenants were coming because you could look through her eyes. Couldn’t you?”

Nicole opens the book, wincing at the pain in her ribs. There’s just enough light shining out from the windows of the Homestead to let her see the engravings. 

Waverly’s got a page marked with a bookmark. There’s an engraving of a dragon and a man in medieval dress, fighting beside one another. The dragon’s face is turned toward a boar being speared by the man, while the man’s face is turned the other way, away from the fight. 

“I thought it was legend,” Waverly says, “but it makes sense, see? And if you read on….”

The book’s in a crabbed and archaic script that Nicole can’t even begin to parse. “I can’t read German,” Nicole reminds Waverly.

Waverly pulls the book back and starts reading. “And it came to pass, that among some of the people, there grew up — friendship? — something like that — between the forest people and the dragons. Well, people of the forest, or people who lived in the forest?” 

She looks off, obviously trying to figure out the best translation, and Nicole laughs. 

“It’s okay,” Nicole says. “I get the idea.”

“So this is you,” Waverly says, closing the book and setting it carefully on the chair next to her. “It’s really you?”

“It’s my family,” Nicole says. “Sort of, I mean. My parents are totally normal. And my sisters.”

“Is this why you came to Purgatory? Did you know there’d be a dragon here?”

“I had no idea,” Nicole says. “My grandparents always told us the dragons were extinct.” 

Nicole had taken that extinction personally as a kid. She’d done presentations for class on mass extinction and the loss of species and diversity and all the potential cures being lost by deforestation in the rainforest. She’d never mentioned the dragons in school, of course. The first rule of family secret club: don’t mention the family secret.

“So River —” Waverly trails off, staring at the dragon.

“I have no idea,” Nicole says. She reaches her hand out to take Waverly’s. “I’m just glad she found us. However she found us.”

They sit in silence a bit longer, watching the stars come out and the last bit of light fade behind the mountains. 

“I’m not jealous,” Waverly says, suddenly. “I promise.”

“I didn’t think you would be,” Nicole says, and she’s telling the truth. “River’s every bit as much your dragon as she is mine.” And River loves Waverly. Nicole knows she does, because she catches bits of River thinking about Waverly. As far as River’s concerned, Waverly is the goddess of liver and player of games.

“So what was it?” Waverly asks, low.

Nicole sighs. “It’s just —” She’s not sure how to explain. “Wynonna’s down to, what, fifty Revenants?”

“Something like that,” Waverly says. “We’ve got the count at the Black Badge office but I’m not sure if she’s updated since the five last night.”

“Yeah.” Nicole’s still not looking at Waverly. “So your curse has an expiration date.”

“River’s not a curse,” Waverly says, and she sounds so upset at the thought that Nicole turns to face her, squeezes her hand again.

“Of course she’s not,” Nicole says. “I just meant… you guys get to be normal. I guess. Once the Revenants are all gone. You get to have choices again. Leave Purgatory.” And with a dragon… Nicole doesn’t, not really. Dragons are for life, and Nicole knows there probably isn’t anywhere else where this would work.

Nedley’s right. The people of Purgatory are really good at ignoring things they don’t want to understand.

“I don’t want to be normal,” Waverly says. She drops Nicole’s hand and gets up and balances on Nicole’s chair, carefully, keeping back from Nicole’s injured ribs as she leans forward to kiss Nicole, gently, tenderly. 

Nicole raises her hand and brushes Waverly’s hair back from her face. She can’t lean up, so Waverly leans in, deepening the kiss. It’s all lips and hands until Waverly’s hand brushes Nicole’s ribs and Nicole breathes in, just a bit faster.

Waverly leans back. “I don’t want normal at all.”

“Promise?” Nicole asks.

Waverly smiles. "Promise." And then she leans down again and kisses her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to everyone for reading, commenting, and kudosing! ♥
> 
> There's at least one more story about Nicole, Waverly, and River set in this continuity. I'm currently writing it (the file name: Dragon II The Dragoning), but it's probably a similar length to this story, so it may take a little while to get it ready to start posting. I've set up the series now in case anyone would like to subscribe to get notifications.


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